DISQUS

CONGRATULATIONS Josh! I made the leap from Edelman about three years ago. One thing "they" neglected to tell me at the time, it's real hard to work for someone else again, EVER.

It's all you. Congratulations, it's going to be a great ride.

Actually the % for CNN itself might be even lower. I would think the viewers of CNN.com would have a higher likelihood to use Twitter than TV viewers as a whole as they had already self-selected to view news online.

My four year old caught one this morning, but hers was made out of rocks (the trap not the leprechaun). Leave it to the LaPlante's to go geekier.

I love his clear statement in the opening credits, "I write, I eat, I travel." Why can't companies all say what they do that effectively?

Welcome to California my friend. I'll take a 3.4 over a winter in Maine any day. One visit to Fryeburg in January made that point clear to me.

I enjoyed your writing before, and will keep reading - no matter where it is.

Also a great way to suck up to the boss. Who's going to be the first Masher with Pete on their wall?

McCain as SecDef?

The need to determine and have all parties agree to what constitutes success is incredibly important. As Chris mentioned the social media equivalent of the old "smile and dial" doesn't cut it anymore. To get those 100 positive mentions you have angered 900 people of whom at least a portion will write about how you annoyed them, and most likely those posts will get much more Google-juice than the positive ones.

Not all products are great, but they may serve a need and will find an audience. Not all CEOs are adept at marketing themselves, or have the time to devote to following up on all press inquiries or keeping track of all of the potential venues to get the word out about their product.

PR is changing. It's changed many times before. It's not going to go away. No more than marketing itself is going to go away. Like mainstream media, it's adapting. Some of the bigger names won't adapt and will fade away. Some of the smaller names will not be able to provide all of the services companies need, and will go away.

Especially considering one of the most advanced companies, www.ntigroup.com with that type of technology is based in Sherman Oaks, or at least was until they were acquired last year.

(Disclosure - they were a client of mine when I was at a previous PR firm several years ago)

A lesson like this was learned by photographer Dirck Halstead in 1998 when a forgotten picture he had taken of a president and an intern became big news - http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue9807/edit...

I don't think this is 'gouging.' This is sales and marketing. If the "I am Rich" was required to be able to do something specific, and nothing else could do that same thing, and the only place in the world to buy it was the App Store, then it would be gouging.

This is no different than Apple charging more for their products or Porsche charging more for theirs. No one HAS to buy Macs, 911's or this silly app.

Hmmm....announce the same day as 50 other companies or in weeks when no one else is.....

Didn't this get tried as myfreecar.com in the 90's?

150 bucks well spent. One goes everywhere with me now. The download process is a bit kludgy on a Mac, but totally worth it.

I've got to recommend Sandi MacLeod on Tuesday at 3:30. Her topic is "Virtual Mentoring for Real Life Success in Music." Sandi runs the Vermont MIDI project which helps young students across the country learn how to compose music and hooks them up with mentors they connect with online. They all get together for a real world concert at the end of the program where music composed by the students is played by the students.
Here's a link http://2008.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2008/03...
(one of the companies I work with is a sponsor of her nonprofit program, but even if they weren't what they are doing is really, really cool)

Jake,

Very good post. I used to work at Edelman (and agree they have very smart people in this space). I now run a small agency. A few other difficulties with agencies that come into play that I have run into:
- the large agency business model is based on senior people making decisions and lower level people acting. Engagement in online conversations on behalf of a client requires a higher level of experience and engagement than for example calling a trade publication about an editorial calendar opportunity.
- outsourcing a company's voice is non-trivial. It can be done, but should it and is the price too high both in terms of risk and investment.
For the most part, the agencies role as it evolves in this space should be as eyes and ears and as the voice of strategy, and behind the scenes implementation (i.e. setting up tools, design etc.)

Well told story of how one can quickly build a network when they have a great idea, track record and the ability to bring a project to market.

I read this and laughed as in 1997 one of clients was a company called Netbot that launched a shopping assistant called, you guess it, "Jango."

Netbot was acquired by Excite soon after and Jango was flung onto the scrap heap of Silicon Valley.

PS - here's a link to the original Jango release - http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Netbot+Announces+...

Good update from Jim Forbes (http://forbesontech.typepad.com/) who was evacuated.

the pride of Checotah, Oklahoma.

Hmmmm...GrandCentral invites....not so sure...

I urge you all the read the complete series of articles. Incredible writing.

Is that Hotel Vitale?